PRESERVING FRUIT BY CANNING AND DRYING.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 336, 23 January 1889, Page 3

PRESERVING FRUIT BY CANNING AND DRYING.

Owing to the extension of orchard planting throughout the colony during the last few years wo may look forward to an annually increasing production of fruit. Jn the full flush of the fruit harvest, it is idle to expect r emunerative prices for fresh fruit, without a much larger consuming population than we shall hare for many years to come" Those who take the pains to construct fruit houses will find their forethought and enterprise well repaid by the prices they will realise for their keeping apples and pears during th° winter and early spring months. We ourselves saw a few months ago cases of last season's apples sold in an Auckland auction mart at 5d and 6d per pound. The same fruit (Shockleys and other good} keeping kinds) would probably not have fetched 2d per pound in fche flush of fruit harvest. In a few weeks' time from now there will b© the annual glut of fruit in the local markets, and we would once more urge upon our readers the advisability of adopting means to avoid swamping the market with tons of fresh fruib which must be sold at any price or rob in the cases they are packed in. Every available method of preserving the surplus fruit' should be taken advantage of. Fruit - canning and jammaking factories should be started, and many large growers could can their own ■ fruit and make money by the business. Another method of utilizing orchard produce which would otherwise be practically wasted is by the evaporating process. Dried fruit, if of superior quality, is a marketable commodity, and easily and cheaply exported to any part of the world. The world's consumption of dried and canned fruits is something enormous and thedemand ispi*actically unlimited. There are many fruit evaporators offered to the public, several of which have been described or advertised in these columns. If there were any neighbourly spirit of co-operation atrongsb settlers we cannot see why the orchardists of a district could not combine to purchase one of these machines, of a drying capacity equal to the probable aggregate quantity of fruit to be dried in the district. Such an evaporator could then be placed in a suitable shed, in as convenient a position as possible for the whole neighbourhood, and each fruit grower could bring his fruit to be dried, and according to the quantityfeach put through the machine his share of the cost Avould be apportioned. There are contrivances by which fruib can be dried in small quantities at home at very small expense on acount of the apparatus employed. We here give an engraving of a home-made fruitdrier that is designed for in - door use with the heat of a common stove. The j size of the frame is determined by that of i

the stove, and may be made of 1% inch material. The legs should be long enough to support the frame woll above the stove, and can be fastened on with hinges, so as to fold up when not in use. The frame may be either covered with a net- work of coarse twine or fine wire — wire cloth is best but more expensive. A second frame may be suspended below the first one, thus doubling the amount of the drying surface.